Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / The Murder of Dr. George Chronis
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Gone Cold. Podcasts may contain violent or graphic subject matter.
- 0:05Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. Rains County, Texas, is the state's
- 0:11Speaker 1: fourth smallest county. Its population is modest and the area
- 0:17Speaker 1: rich with oak, elm and mesquite sits between Lake Tawakane
- 0:22Speaker 1: to the west and Lake Fork to the east. Though
- 0:26Speaker 1: oil and gas extraction is common there, agriculture and ranching
- 0:31Speaker 1: are prevalent, and rural Rains County has maintained much of
- 0:35Speaker 1: its natural beauty. It's the perfect place for those seeking
- 0:40Speaker 1: respite from the day to day chaos of city life.
- 0:44Speaker 1: Crime Wise, the local sheriff's department doesn't see a lot
- 0:48Speaker 1: of action, so in May of twenty eighteen, when police
- 0:53Speaker 1: and firefighters discovered a body after responding to the scene
- 0:57Speaker 1: of a barn and bunk house a blaze, it was unusual.
- 1:02Speaker 1: At first, The cause of the man's death was officially
- 1:06Speaker 1: listed as undetermined and ruled accidental. However, authorities ultimately determined
- 1:13Speaker 1: that the death of doctor George Cronus was the result
- 1:17Speaker 1: of foul play. Born on September seventeenth, nineteen sixty to
- 1:49Speaker 1: parents Demetra and Basil, George Basil Cronus is mechanically inclined
- 1:54Speaker 1: and curious mind was apparent from the beginning. As a
- 1:58Speaker 1: young boy, his his mother said he had to see
- 2:01Speaker 1: how things worked, and George spent as much time, if
- 2:05Speaker 1: not more, dismantling his toys as he did playing with them.
- 2:10Speaker 1: Nothing was safe from the boy's need to deconstruct. In fact,
- 2:15Speaker 1: not even George's aunt's watch or his parents toaster. George
- 2:20Speaker 1: grew up in Palis Park, a suburb of Chicago in
- 2:24Speaker 1: southwest Cook County. Eventually he followed in his father, Basil's
- 2:29Speaker 1: footsteps as a long standing obstetrician and gynecologist in the area,
- 2:34Speaker 1: where Basil had practiced for over fifty years before his
- 2:38Speaker 1: death in twenty fourteen. If George sought to understand the
- 2:43Speaker 1: work around him and excel at everything he did when
- 2:47Speaker 1: he was a boy, then that resolve and motivation only
- 2:50Speaker 1: strengthened when it followed him into his academic life. He
- 2:55Speaker 1: graduated from Morgan Park Academy High School in nineteen seventy seven,
- 3:00Speaker 1: began undergraduate studies at Northwest University in nineteen eighty one,
- 3:05Speaker 1: where he obtained a bachelor's degree in chemistry, and graduated
- 3:10Speaker 1: from the University of Illinois College of Medicine with honors
- 3:14Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty seven. At the University of Iowa, where
- 3:18Speaker 1: George pursued residency for obstetrics and gynecology, he met his
- 3:23Speaker 1: future wife. Connie, was a labor and delivery nurse at
- 3:28Speaker 1: the University of Iowa hospital, and she and George hit
- 3:32Speaker 1: it off after ditching a Christmas party together. They married
- 3:36Speaker 1: in October of nineteen ninety one, just a few months
- 3:39Speaker 1: after George completed residency. That year too, he entered a
- 3:44Speaker 1: postgraduate fellowship in advanced gynecological surgery at the Mayo Clinic
- 3:50Speaker 1: in Chicago. As devoted to practicing medicine as he was,
- 3:55Speaker 1: George also maintained an extremely active personal life through his
- 4:00Speaker 1: academic and professional careers. He played several musical instruments, including
- 4:05Speaker 1: the guitar and piano. He was involved in many sports,
- 4:10Speaker 1: hockey and soccer to name a few. George spoke French
- 4:15Speaker 1: and Greek. He was said to be a good cook,
- 4:18Speaker 1: enjoyed riding his motorcycle, and was an active fisherman and hunter,
- 4:23Speaker 1: among plenty of other outdoor activities. Quite the craftsman, he
- 4:28Speaker 1: was also proficient in welding and building George and Connie
- 4:33Speaker 1: Cronus made a good life for themselves after he joined
- 4:37Speaker 1: his father's practice in nineteen ninety two. She gave birth
- 4:41Speaker 1: to their first child, a daughter, in nineteen ninety four,
- 4:46Speaker 1: a son in nineteen ninety five, and another son in
- 4:49Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six. Sometime in the late nineties, George was
- 4:54Speaker 1: forced to give up some of the activities he enjoyed,
- 4:58Speaker 1: primarily the more athletical ones that required great balance, when
- 5:02Speaker 1: he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The disease didn't keep
- 5:07Speaker 1: him from his duties as an obstetrician and gynecologist, nor
- 5:11Speaker 1: did they keep him from his duties as a father,
- 5:14Speaker 1: yet another area where George is said to have excelled.
- 5:18Speaker 1: The disease likely contributed to the Cronus's decision to purchase
- 5:23Speaker 1: a large piece of land in Texas around two thousand
- 5:26Speaker 1: and nine, though it is said that buying the property
- 5:29Speaker 1: was to provide a peaceful place where George could get
- 5:32Speaker 1: away from the pressure and stresses of maintaining the medical practice.
- 5:37Speaker 1: About ten years later, the Cronus's beloved Texas retreat became
- 5:42Speaker 1: the site of a mystery that only continues to deepen.
- 5:48Speaker 1: The seventy nine acre property that doctor George Cronus and
- 5:52Speaker 1: his wife Connie purchased sometime in the late two thousands,
- 5:56Speaker 1: was surrounded by thickets of oak, cedar, and pine. Located
- 6:01Speaker 1: in Rains County, Texas, the property was about seventy five
- 6:05Speaker 1: miles east of Dallas and four miles west of Alba,
- 6:10Speaker 1: though it's closer. Alba is mostly located in Wood County,
- 6:15Speaker 1: closer than the six miles northwest to Emory. The Rains
- 6:19Speaker 1: County seat Emory is about twice as large as Alba,
- 6:23Speaker 1: but either one is an accurate representation of the area.
- 6:27Speaker 1: Towns surrounding the Cronus's ranch. Rains County is small and
- 6:32Speaker 1: quintessentially rural. If it wasn't for a coal deposit found
- 6:37Speaker 1: there and in contiguous Wood County in the early twentieth century,
- 6:41Speaker 1: which prompted the construction of a railroad line, the area
- 6:45Speaker 1: would likely have never boomed, but it did briefly, the
- 6:50Speaker 1: population rising to somewhere around eight thousand by nineteen twenty,
- 6:55Speaker 1: the highest it would be for another fifty years. Owners
- 6:59Speaker 1: of the mines used convict labor when production at them began,
- 7:04Speaker 1: reaping the entirety of the rewards on the backs of prisoners.
- 7:08Speaker 1: Regardless of this dark fact and the others this particular
- 7:13Speaker 1: part of Texas holds. The last mine was closed in
- 7:16Speaker 1: nineteen forty three, after the Great Depression had ravaged the
- 7:20Speaker 1: area's prosperity and growth, including a Morton salt mine. The
- 7:26Speaker 1: lignant coal mines were once producing forty thousand tons of
- 7:29Speaker 1: coal a month, a number not to be scoffed at.
- 7:33Speaker 1: But the resource isn't renewable. That last fact, along with
- 7:38Speaker 1: the decline in the use of coal burning locomotives for transportation,
- 7:42Speaker 1: doomed that industry in Rains and Wood Counties. Even with
- 7:47Speaker 1: the discovery of all the population and economy declined. The
- 7:52Speaker 1: area's inability or unwillingness to become industrial, along with its
- 7:57Speaker 1: country charm and the easy going, slow drawled residents that
- 8:02Speaker 1: made Rain's County seem a world away from the big city,
- 8:05Speaker 1: is what attracted the Cronuses to buy land there. Neither
- 8:10Speaker 1: George nor Connie could keep a constant presence at the
- 8:13Speaker 1: Texas Ranch, of course, since their obligations and responsibilities were
- 8:18Speaker 1: in Chicago, Illinois. But George met a man there who
- 8:22Speaker 1: agreed to keep an eye on things justin Wolfe, the
- 8:27Speaker 1: son of Rain's County Judge Wainewolf, agreed to maintain and
- 8:31Speaker 1: watch the Cronus's land if they'd allow his cattle to
- 8:35Speaker 1: graze on the property. Though the arrangement seemed like a
- 8:39Speaker 1: no brainer for George at first, things eventually became sour
- 8:43Speaker 1: between he and wolf Neighbors complained to the Cronuses that
- 8:47Speaker 1: the man's cattle were roaming and grazing on their land
- 8:51Speaker 1: because he had neglected to repair fences separating the properties,
- 8:56Speaker 1: repairs that were supposed to be included in the deal
- 8:59Speaker 1: he had with the Cronuses. George ended the arrangements with
- 9:04Speaker 1: Justin Wolfe and found another man to make a similar
- 9:07Speaker 1: deal with. In the spring of twenty eighteen, George made
- 9:12Speaker 1: plans to head down to the ranch in Texas. He
- 9:15Speaker 1: was to meet with an attorney who had drawn up
- 9:17Speaker 1: a contract with the Rains County man named Darren Gowan,
- 9:21Speaker 1: who would put his cows on the Cronus's land and
- 9:24Speaker 1: in return would take care of the property. It was
- 9:28Speaker 1: virtually the same deal that was previously made with Wolf,
- 9:32Speaker 1: one that is relatively common on second home ranches and
- 9:36Speaker 1: other rural properties. George had a good feeling about Gowen.
- 9:41Speaker 1: Not only did there Rains County neighbor mister Johnson suggest him,
- 9:46Speaker 1: but the man had also been keeping him up to
- 9:48Speaker 1: date with texts and photos of the progress he had
- 9:52Speaker 1: made as he was fixing things up on the Cronus property.
- 9:56Speaker 1: As a gesture of appreciation for the good work he
- 9:59Speaker 1: had done, George picked up a two hundred dollars gift
- 10:02Speaker 1: card to Bass Pro Shop for Gowan. He was looking
- 10:06Speaker 1: forward to Justin Wolf, getting the remainder of his cows out,
- 10:10Speaker 1: and getting Darren Gowen completely moved in as caretaker. But
- 10:15Speaker 1: the trip to Rain's County wasn't all business. George Cronus
- 10:19Speaker 1: also sought a vacation away from his responsibilities at his
- 10:23Speaker 1: practice in Palace Park, Illinois. He planned to hunt wild
- 10:28Speaker 1: boar and enjoy the property he'd been away from for
- 10:31Speaker 1: three long years. I'm going down to my ranch, George
- 10:35Speaker 1: texted his brother Paul a few days before his trip,
- 10:39Speaker 1: It's my happy place. On Thursday May third, twenty eighteen,
- 10:56Speaker 1: doctor George Cronus arrived in Texas from Illinois. He stopped
- 11:01Speaker 1: in Emery on his way to his family's ranch and
- 11:04Speaker 1: bought a few pieces of patio furniture at a grocery store.
- 11:08Speaker 1: Video surveillance recorded the fifty seven year old both entering
- 11:12Speaker 1: and leaving the establishment, and at exactly seven forty two pm,
- 11:18Speaker 1: George's wife Connie received photos of the patio furniture he
- 11:22Speaker 1: had bought via text messages. He arrived a short while
- 11:26Speaker 1: later at their bunk house, which was a barn they
- 11:30Speaker 1: had converted into a living space. George had done much
- 11:34Speaker 1: of the work himself. At nine oh seven pm, Connie
- 11:38Speaker 1: received another text from George that read view on entry,
- 11:43Speaker 1: notice anything. The attached photo showed the kitchen at the
- 11:47Speaker 1: Cronus's bunk house. The table and chairs there the focal point.
- 11:52Speaker 1: The furniture wasn't theirs. In fact, they had never seen it.
- 11:57Speaker 1: Neither George nor Connie had been to the property for
- 12:00Speaker 1: some time. So the food George discovered in the refrigerator
- 12:04Speaker 1: as he went to put away his newly bought groceries
- 12:07Speaker 1: was equally as puzzling. It, like the chairs and the table,
- 12:12Speaker 1: wasn't theirs. George called Connie after he finished putting up
- 12:17Speaker 1: the groceries and unloading his things, and they discussed what
- 12:21Speaker 1: he'd found. It was obvious that someone had been staying
- 12:25Speaker 1: in the home on the Cronus's ranch. That was the
- 12:28Speaker 1: last time Connie ever spoke with her husband. Early in
- 12:34Speaker 1: the morning of Friday, May third, twenty eighteen, at five
- 12:39Speaker 1: point fifty nine am, Connie Cronus received a call from
- 12:43Speaker 1: Rains County emergency Dispatch. Her home on the ranch had
- 12:47Speaker 1: gone up in flames and was completely burned to the ground,
- 12:50Speaker 1: the dispatcher told her, and they'd found George just outside.
- 12:55Speaker 1: He was dead. Even earlier in the morning, and because
- 13:00Speaker 1: the Cronus's bunk house was viewable from nearby homes and
- 13:04Speaker 1: even the road, mister Johnson, a neighbor who lived close,
- 13:08Speaker 1: saw the fire from his home and called the sheriff.
- 13:12Speaker 1: He drove to the burning property, where he phoned Darren Gowan,
- 13:16Speaker 1: the new caretaker. Gowan rushed over, and when first responders arrived,
- 13:22Speaker 1: he and mister Johnson were there. According to a Rains
- 13:26Speaker 1: County Sheriff's deputy report, the two men stayed as firefighters
- 13:30Speaker 1: extinguished the blaze. When nothing was left of the converted
- 13:35Speaker 1: barn but smoldering soot and ashes, the body of George
- 13:39Speaker 1: Cronus was found just outside the two story structure. He
- 13:43Speaker 1: was laying face down on the ground just outside of
- 13:47Speaker 1: where a doorway had been. In crime scene photographs Connie
- 13:51Speaker 1: later saw, George appeared to have something clutched in his
- 13:55Speaker 1: left hand, which was severely burnt, along with approximately half
- 14:00Speaker 1: of the rest of his body. George was taken about
- 14:04Speaker 1: sixty miles southeast to a Tyler, Texas medical examiner. Upon autopsy,
- 14:10Speaker 1: non toxic levels of an antidepressant in George's blood were found,
- 14:15Speaker 1: as well as some signs of heart disease. White plastic
- 14:20Speaker 1: pellets were discovered in the man's stomach, which threw the
- 14:23Speaker 1: pathologist off, though the substance was later explained as the
- 14:27Speaker 1: medication George took for his condition multiple sclerosis. It was
- 14:33Speaker 1: determined that he had no smoke or soot in his lungs,
- 14:37Speaker 1: meaning he was dead before the fire broke out. The
- 14:41Speaker 1: burns on George's body two were post mortem. Around his
- 14:46Speaker 1: neck was a ligature mark, but that wasn't listed in
- 14:49Speaker 1: the medical examiner's autopsy findings. Instead, it was mentioned by
- 14:54Speaker 1: the sheriff's deputy on the scene in his incident report.
- 14:59Speaker 1: George chron had what he called a blue string around
- 15:03Speaker 1: his neck that looked like a shirt collar. According to
- 15:06Speaker 1: the officer in his ride up. Other details listed by
- 15:10Speaker 1: the deputy in his report were striking, though the autopsy
- 15:15Speaker 1: neglected to mention it. George had blood coming from out
- 15:18Speaker 1: of his mouth and at the top of his head.
- 15:21Speaker 1: These things were captured on crime scene photographs. Still, the
- 15:26Speaker 1: pathologist listed the manner of death as undetermined. Investigators from
- 15:33Speaker 1: the Texas State Fire Marshal swooped in to determine what
- 15:36Speaker 1: caused the fire to the Cronus bunk house, but couldn't.
- 15:41Speaker 1: The family hired a private investigator to see if an
- 15:44Speaker 1: outside agency could figure it out, but they too were
- 15:48Speaker 1: left clueless. Connie Cronus was shaken by her husband's tragic death,
- 15:54Speaker 1: but she knew he hadn't committed suicide and an accident.
- 15:58Speaker 1: According to the evidence at the scene and the autopsy
- 16:02Speaker 1: was virtually implausible, none of it made any sense, including
- 16:08Speaker 1: where the guns George kept were found. A handgun was
- 16:12Speaker 1: discovered in the barn's lower level under the bunk house,
- 16:16Speaker 1: on the seat of a burned up tractor. A couple
- 16:20Speaker 1: rifles were found randomly among the debris and ash. Since
- 16:25Speaker 1: what caused the death of George Cronus was undetermined, the
- 16:30Speaker 1: case was open, though it looked like it was heading
- 16:33Speaker 1: toward an accidental ruling from the get go. Because of this,
- 16:38Speaker 1: it's unclear how hard the case was worked, or if
- 16:41Speaker 1: it was at all, when it was in the hands
- 16:43Speaker 1: of the initial Rains County Sheriff's Office investigator. Nine months
- 16:48Speaker 1: after George died, when the investigator left the department, the
- 16:53Speaker 1: case switched hands and went to Sheriff's Captain Walt Kimmel.
- 16:58Speaker 1: He was relatively new to the department. He'd only been
- 17:01Speaker 1: there three years when he took on George's case, and
- 17:05Speaker 1: he commented that a suspicious death wasn't a common thing
- 17:09Speaker 1: in Rains County. It was the only one there, in fact,
- 17:13Speaker 1: since he had joined the Sheriff's office. Though Captain Kimmel
- 17:18Speaker 1: said he worked the case every day, it was essentially
- 17:21Speaker 1: ice cold. The investigator was determined to find new answers,
- 17:27Speaker 1: he said, and sought them in unconventional ways, conducting a
- 17:32Speaker 1: burn pattern experiment in his own backyard and even choking
- 17:36Speaker 1: himself with a dog collar attempting to replicate the ligature
- 17:40Speaker 1: marks on George Cronus's neck. Kimmel, like Connie Cronus, thought
- 17:46Speaker 1: that what George clutched in his left hand, which had burnt,
- 17:49Speaker 1: along with half of his body, was cash. He sent
- 17:53Speaker 1: a photograph taken of George's hand clutching the material to
- 17:57Speaker 1: be analyzed by the Secret Service, since that agency is
- 18:01Speaker 1: best equipped to determine matters of currency. Captain Kimmel resorting
- 18:07Speaker 1: to sending a photograph instead of the remnants of the
- 18:10Speaker 1: physical evidence itself perhaps suggests that it wasn't preserved. Based
- 18:17Speaker 1: on the burn pattern to George's right hand, Captain Kimmel
- 18:21Speaker 1: believed that the victim may have held a gun when
- 18:23Speaker 1: he died, but it was removed after he'd been at
- 18:26Speaker 1: least partially scorched by the flames. He said, the burn
- 18:31Speaker 1: pattern on that hand in the photos taken at the
- 18:33Speaker 1: scene and at the morgue are a pretty good outline
- 18:37Speaker 1: of what a gun looks like. The Captain said that
- 18:40Speaker 1: among all of these things, the lack of smoke in
- 18:43Speaker 1: George's lungs and the ligature marks on his neck made
- 18:47Speaker 1: the death an incredibly suspicious one, but since the Justice
- 18:51Speaker 1: of the Peace had ruled the death as accidental, he
- 18:54Speaker 1: was hitting roadblocks at every turn. The investigator sought help
- 18:59Speaker 1: outside the department with the Texas Rangers, but they declined
- 19:04Speaker 1: since the death wasn't deemed a homicide, Captain Kimmel said.
- 19:09Speaker 1: Though the Tyler, Texas medical examiner who had performed the
- 19:13Speaker 1: autopsy stood by his work, the law man was having
- 19:16Speaker 1: a tough time buying the official findings, Kimmel questioned. He
- 19:21Speaker 1: said the quality of that procedure. Not only were the
- 19:26Speaker 1: facts of the death itself ignored on the autopsy report,
- 19:30Speaker 1: facts visible to the naked eye, there were also other
- 19:34Speaker 1: bizarre errors. The report even listed the man's eye color
- 19:38Speaker 1: as blue, but George's eyes were brown, a simple mistake,
- 19:43Speaker 1: but when added to a list of other questions, a
- 19:46Speaker 1: lack of answers, and the fact that the initial investigation
- 19:50Speaker 1: was less than thorough, it became a piece of a
- 19:53Speaker 1: complicated enigma. Captain Kimmel said that he and another deputy
- 19:58Speaker 1: working the case had questioned six people who they considered
- 20:03Speaker 1: persons of interest in whatever happened to George Cronus. He
- 20:08Speaker 1: added that they might request that three take polygraph tests,
- 20:12Speaker 1: though whether this ever happened or not wasn't made clear.
- 20:15Speaker 1: Months later, in a December twenty nineteen Chicago Sun Times
- 20:20Speaker 1: article on the case, it was also unclear who exactly
- 20:24Speaker 1: those persons of interest were, let alone why they made
- 20:28Speaker 1: that list. There are other oddities that only deepen the
- 20:44Speaker 1: mystery of the death of doctor George Cronus. A house
- 20:49Speaker 1: on a ridge overlooking the Cronus's ranch burned down the
- 20:53Speaker 1: Christmas following the Cronus fire. The two blazes weren't thought
- 20:58Speaker 1: to be connected by local authority, but when a reporter
- 21:01Speaker 1: asked the homeowner about George's death, his reply was odd.
- 21:07Speaker 1: I didn't know that. Wow, nobody's told me, he said,
- 21:10Speaker 1: even though his own son had called nine to one
- 21:13Speaker 1: one the night of the Cronus fire to report it.
- 21:18Speaker 1: He wasn't the only local who months later hadn't heard
- 21:22Speaker 1: the news of a mysterious and suspicious death in the area.
- 21:26Speaker 1: Many residents in nearby Emery claimed to have never heard
- 21:30Speaker 1: of a Chicago doctor who had been found deceased just
- 21:33Speaker 1: outside his burned down bunk house. Not only had the
- 21:37Speaker 1: fire and George Cronus's death not made the rounds in
- 21:40Speaker 1: the small county, but neither had the investigation into it.
- 21:45Speaker 1: In February of twenty nineteen, during a heatedly contested campaign
- 21:50Speaker 1: against the incumbent sheriff, David Traylor. The department posted an
- 21:55Speaker 1: update because the campaign of the man running against the
- 21:58Speaker 1: current sheriff called him out publicly about the Cronus case.
- 22:03Speaker 1: It was the Chicago Sun Times coverage that led many
- 22:06Speaker 1: locals to find out about George's mysterious death many months
- 22:10Speaker 1: after it happened. The sheriff's challenger wrote in a Facebook post,
- 22:15Speaker 1: and he wasn't wrong. It called into question again whether
- 22:19Speaker 1: much of the investigation was performed at all. Initially, the
- 22:24Speaker 1: sheriff responded that the department under his watch had put
- 22:28Speaker 1: in many man hours on the Cronus death case and
- 22:31Speaker 1: that it was overly complex. He went on to say
- 22:35Speaker 1: that the Texas Rangers, the Texas Department of Public Safety,
- 22:39Speaker 1: and the Secret Service all had their hand in the investigation,
- 22:43Speaker 1: but that was a stretch, a rather large one, since
- 22:47Speaker 1: the Texas DPS and the Rangers had only been involved
- 22:50Speaker 1: at the very beginning. It wasn't until a year and
- 22:55Speaker 1: a half after the death, in November twenty nineteen that
- 22:59Speaker 1: any other developments or major events related to the case came.
- 23:04Speaker 1: On the eighteenth of that month, a billboard was put
- 23:08Speaker 1: up on US Route sixty nine offering a seventy five
- 23:11Speaker 1: thousand dollars reward for information leading to an arrest and
- 23:15Speaker 1: conviction in the death of doctor George Cronus. The billboard
- 23:20Speaker 1: and the reward offered was paid for by the Cronus
- 23:23Speaker 1: family and their friends. The Cronus ranch sat overgrown with
- 23:28Speaker 1: weeds and wildflowers, hiding the burnt remains of the mysterious
- 23:33Speaker 1: fire of the bunk house and what was, for a
- 23:36Speaker 1: time considered the suspicious death of George Cronus. Charred beams
- 23:42Speaker 1: are the only thing to be seen past the brush.
- 23:46Speaker 1: A friend of George's brother, an attorney, brought a film
- 23:50Speaker 1: crew to the scene as he considered producing a documentary
- 23:53Speaker 1: on the case, though his decision on whether to do
- 23:57Speaker 1: so is unknown as nothing has been released. He made
- 24:01Speaker 1: clear that he found the medical examiner's conclusion of undetermined
- 24:05Speaker 1: and accidental absurd, and so did Connie Cronus and the
- 24:10Speaker 1: rest of George's family. The ligature marks and the blood
- 24:14Speaker 1: found on George's mouth and head were telltale signs of
- 24:17Speaker 1: foul play. In twenty twenty, a nationally known and renowned
- 24:23Speaker 1: pathologist reviewed the autopsy report, post mortem photos, and scene photos.
- 24:30Speaker 1: Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Chief Medical examiner, doctor Brian Peterson's career
- 24:36Speaker 1: is as solid as it gets. In his thirty years
- 24:40Speaker 1: as a pathologist, he's performed over ten thousand autopsies. Doctor
- 24:45Speaker 1: Peterson has consulted many forensic based television true crime shows,
- 24:50Speaker 1: including regular consultation on forensic files. He told the Chicago
- 24:55Speaker 1: Sun Times that concluding that the death of doctor George
- 24:59Speaker 1: Cronus was anything other than homicide would be a difficult feat.
- 25:04Speaker 1: Doctor Peterson said that it was obvious George's death was
- 25:07Speaker 1: the result of strangulation before the bunk house ever went
- 25:11Speaker 1: up in flames. The ligature wasn't angled as you would
- 25:15Speaker 1: generally find in a suicide. Rather, it was evenly horizontal,
- 25:20Speaker 1: doctor Peterson said, like you'd normally find in a murder.
- 25:25Speaker 1: Since no soot had been found in fifty seven year
- 25:28Speaker 1: old Cronus's lungs, the fire had nothing to do with
- 25:31Speaker 1: his death, but instead was a cover up attempt after
- 25:35Speaker 1: the fact. While doctor Peterson said it is possible that
- 25:39Speaker 1: there is information that he doesn't have at his disposal
- 25:43Speaker 1: to back up the original autopsy, he found it unlikely
- 25:47Speaker 1: that the death of George Cronis was accidental or suicide,
- 25:53Speaker 1: but the new determination was not legally binding. Peterson wouldn't
- 25:58Speaker 1: be the last to refuse ute the original findings. In
- 26:02Speaker 1: an autopsy performed on September thirteenth, twenty twenty two, by
- 26:06Speaker 1: doctor Amanda Yowmans in Peoria, Illinois, it was again determined
- 26:11Speaker 1: that George's death was a homicide. This time, on Thursday,
- 26:16Speaker 1: May eighteenth, twenty twenty three, Rains County Peace Justice R.
- 26:21Speaker 1: Jenkins Franklin decided against his colleague's original ruling. Now doctor
- 26:27Speaker 1: Cronus's death is officially a homicide, the new ruling stating
- 26:32Speaker 1: that George had died of asphyxiation at the hands of
- 26:35Speaker 1: another under suspicious circumstances. Justice of the Peace Franklin, who
- 26:42Speaker 1: insisted the case was now being actively investigated with the
- 26:46Speaker 1: help of the Texas Rangers, was also disturbed by what
- 26:49Speaker 1: appeared to be a case kept in the dark. I'm
- 26:53Speaker 1: not saying it was swept under the rug, he said,
- 26:56Speaker 1: but nobody knew about it, meaning the people of Mayes County. Again,
- 27:02Speaker 1: virtually the entirety of the county knew nothing about the
- 27:06Speaker 1: fire and death until the Chicago Sun Times in depth
- 27:09Speaker 1: article published in December of twenty nineteen, Franklin was passionate
- 27:15Speaker 1: about George's case. In twenty twenty, he was the one
- 27:19Speaker 1: running for sheriff who repeatedly questioned the incumbent's competence, particularly
- 27:25Speaker 1: regarding the investigation into George Cronus's death. If you have
- 27:32Speaker 1: any information about the murder of doctor George Cronus, please
- 27:36Speaker 1: contact the Lake Country Crime Stoppers at nine zero three
- 27:41Speaker 1: eight eight five twenty twenty. If you'd like to join
- 27:46Speaker 1: Con Cold's mission to shine a light on unsolved homicides
- 27:50Speaker 1: and missing persons cases, get the show at free and
- 27:54Speaker 1: have access to bonus content. You can at Patreon dot
- 27:57Speaker 1: com slash Gone Cold podcast. You can also support the
- 28:02Speaker 1: show by leaving a five star rating and written review
- 28:05Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or wherever else you listen. However you
- 28:10Speaker 1: choose to support Gone Cold, we appreciate you. Thanks for listening, y'all.